


Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte

by The_Carnivorous_Muffin



Series: Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Family, Female Harry Potter, Friendship, Gen, Master of Death Harry Potter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-21
Updated: 2018-08-21
Packaged: 2019-06-30 10:10:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15749553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Carnivorous_Muffin/pseuds/The_Carnivorous_Muffin
Summary: Death, Lily, and Wizard Lenin have a conversation on what, for them, is a typical Sunday afternoon.





	Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte

_“I am a theater of processes… I am prey to the imperfect vision, to the race consciousness and its terrible purpose.”_

-Frank Herbert, Dune

* * *

“And so I said, ‘Dudders, you stupid whale, you can’t become tyrant of the playground if your army is only supplied with sticks.’ They should at least upgrade to pitchforks and torches, I mean, that’s just basic strategy you know. Right, Lenin?”

 

Sitting in the image of a café drinking the idea of tea Death Destroyer of Worlds listened with a smile to a girl that in some other world might have been his sister. In some ways she was always in this world, he found time to be a somewhat faded construct in this world between worlds, and though she claimed she visited on regular intervals it appeared to him that all these moments bled into one another until he was never alone. If he concentrated, allowed his attention to drift from the conversation, sometimes he could see all these visits at once looking down on himself and the red-headed girl as if looking through a kaleidoscope train stations.

 

So in some ways he hadn’t been surprised when Tom Riddle had shown his face but that didn’t necessarily mean he liked it.

 

“Yes, of course, one can never win a battle without pitchforks.”

 

Although Voldemort had seemed cataclysmic at the time, his own destiny come to fruition, it turned out to be only a small fraction of his existence. It could perhaps be described as the point in which Harry Potter was most human, when he believed himself to be most human, but beyond that there was not much to say. He would later see war, genocide, and atrocities far greater than Lord Voldemort had ever managed to produce on their small dark island. In the end Voldemort seemed no more than a speck of light in the void when compared to all that had presented itself to him. Eternity was the infinite, all possibilities until the end unravelling themselves into the void, and each individual was only a flickering candle burning desperately in the night. Still, Voldemort had always remained in his memory, in the deserts of Mars and further Tom Riddle had always been there in his mind. When he had believed he was human, when he thought of himself in limited means, memories had seemed so terribly significant.

 

He wasn’t always sure what to think of this particular incarnation of Tom Marvolo Riddle.

 

Tom Riddle had always seemed false in the memories presented by Dumbledore, lacking in some regard, a flat two-dimensional man painted on a canvas and told to dance. There had been nothing in him but his rage, his anger, and his hatred for humanity.

 

This Tom Riddle looked positively bored out of his mind at the moment and yet his pale blue eyes were still striking as if seeing this train station for what it really was, an illusion of comfort created by a young Harry Potter to represent the archway of the veil.

 

“And torches.” Lily added for her companion helpfully.

 

“And torches.” Repeated Tom Riddle obediently but in a tone that suggested he believed anything but.

 

He was dressed in what Lily thought to be Communist attire, in the case of that particular meeting a replication of Stalin’s military uniform. He was leaning back in his chair, in a position relaxed to the point that it was almost comical, and tapping his fingers looking as if he wanted to do anything but discuss the life and times of his five year old host.

 

Seeing other times, watching the drifting sands of life stretch before him, he knew that this would change because even fragments of soul were subject to the forces of the universe that shift and shape. Lenin, as he was called, was a myriad of expressions and thoughts that stretched almost beyond where he himself could see. He was the white expanse of all potentials, all possibilities, he simply wasn’t aware of it yet.

 

For the moment he was only the memory of a murderer playing dress up with a little girl in a place that did not truly exist in the minds of men. Even so he had already managed to transcend his original existence by appearing there in the first place.

 

“I see, I must say I’ve never used that particular method of warfare either.” Death said nodding at Lily and pouring more of the tea into his own waning cup. “You do know, Lily, that eventually Dudley Dursley will grow as a human being.”

 

He wasn’t sure why he said that, he knew he had no hope of convincing Lily to change her mind on her cousin or humanity in general, and nor should she. She didn’t belong to humanity and the sooner she cemented that idea in her mind the easier it would be at the end of things. Still, sometimes he said words he almost meant but didn’t quite, such as this opinion on Dudley Dursley who had almost faded into obscurity for him being a person that belonged to Harry Potter and not to Death.

 

Lily stared at him blankly, he could see the gears in her mind spinning away towards nothingness, towards a non-understanding and it was almost painful to watch. In the end she resembled him more now than when he was a human; nowhere in her was that overwhelming desire to resemble the average.

 

Tom Riddle scoffed, “In all my envisioning of the afterlife I did not imagine watching Death berate a little girl on her sense of morality.”

 

“It’s just an observation.” Death stated with a sigh, “Nothing more nothing less.”

 

“Then why say it? He’s not your universe’s Dudley Dursley either, at least according to you, so why even bring him to the table?”

 

(Because some part of him still desperately longed for humanity, but he was hardly going to tell Tom Riddle that).

 

His eyes slid to the pale man sitting beside Lily, that ageless groundless being that existed as only a fragment of his prior self, how was it then that he managed to blaze so brightly when he was missing more than half of his soul. “Are you certain you want to test me, Tom Marvolo Riddle?”

 

For a moment, unseen to the untrained Lily and the almost human soul fragment inside her, the vision of Kings Cross wavered ever so slightly and the blue and white fires of the super nova flickered in the distance moving ever outward as the tundra of the wasteland fell dark and the shadows of the worlds grew more jagged. This is the end, this is the end, not with a bang but with a…

 

It was only a blink, really, that was all it needed to be.

 

“Okay then,” Lily said slowly as if trying to douse a fire before it got started, “So, I think you both win… the argument… or whatever… Are we arguing?”

 

“I don’t argue, if we were arguing someone would probably be dead.” Tom Riddle responded rather shortly, another trait he had noticed in their growing acquaintanceship was that this horcrux was uncharacteristically blunt and rather honest at the end of things.

 

There were many small differences like this that caused him to pause whenever he wanted to refer to the other as Voldemort. One was because it was highly ironic not to mention ridiculous to routinely meet with Death when one’s title was a flight from death another was that it just didn’t fit. This man, dangerous though he was, was not the same Voldemort he had known so very briefly in his own dimension.

 

He wasn’t sure what to call him. The name Tom annoyed the horcrux, that was evident, and he enjoyed that aspect of using it but it also didn’t fit. Perhaps Lily had the gist of it; perhaps his name was Lenin, or quickly becoming it. In its own way communism did suit this man.

 

“No, no, I don’t think we’re arguing either.”

 

“Oh good, that’s great, because Lenin I don’t think you can kill death. In fact I think that’s kind of the reason why you’re in my brain right now; well besides the whole vehicular homicide shindig that you thought was a good idea, so maybe trying a second time might not go so well. We’re also in another dimension so things exploding might cause more of a rift in the time space continuum which would cause the universe to collapse faster than it already is and I think if the world ends everyone loses.”

 

It showed how long they had been together that Tom Riddle did not threaten or even attempt to correct her but rather said in a flat voice, “I’ll try to keep that in mind.”

 

“Back to Dudley though, not sure he’s capable of growth, don’t you kind of have to be capable of thought before you can grow? Mental growth, not physical growth, he’s got the physical growth down to a method. It’s very impressive.”

 

“Lily, Dudley is five.”

 

Lily waved her hand as if that was nothing, which for her it apparently was. Age to Lily was a rather strange concept as she’d never really had to deal with it personally. As far as he could tell at least by the age of three she was functioning at a similar level as she was now and so concepts like mental age or intellectual growth meant nothing to her. Somehow, even knowing what she was, knowing more thoroughly than any other being in the universe, he always fell into the same traps as everyone else and mistook her for something she vaguely resembled but would never be.

 

Lily was not a little girl and it was hard to remember that at times.

 

She didn’t respond further than that leaving the question hanging in the air. Sometimes she cut herself off, perhaps she did so because she felt he wouldn’t understand or appreciate the answer or perhaps it was because she wasn’t certain of the answer herself whatever her reasons for doubting Dudley’s sentience it would be left unsaid.

 

So instead the three of them sat in rather awkward silence staring at each other and waiting for someone to speak first.

 

“Are we done here?” Tom Riddle finally asked, as he did at the end of every one of these meetings that had occurred thus far, “Not that I don’t love chatting it up with your friend the overly friendly incarnation of the grim reaper but there are things that need doing.”

 

As if to confirm the fact that there was nothing immediate that needed to be done Lily blankly looked over at her companion and asked in a questioning voice, “…Weeding?”

 

“Ah, yes, considering your current state of total impotence I’m sure the world is simply brimming with opportunities. How goes the current conquest, comrade Riddle?” He smiled charmingly at Tom Riddle who was getting much better at controlling his facial expressions, he never quite got the eyes though, those always burned a little whenever confronted like this.

 

“It is a minor setback.” He stated with a confidence that could only be marveled at.

 

“You not only lack a body but you’re a fragment of a soul, not even the original yourself, that’s very large for something so minor. Believe me, I would know, I get to watch all of the pitiful attempts at immortality and they generally don’t end well.”

 

Tom Riddle considered that for a few moments his face dark and his eyes weighing. In them he could see the possibilities being reflected, the risk of attacking something you didn’t know over a comment you didn’t like, he had taken those steps before and it had not ended so well for him. This was a far more cautious man than the Voldemort that Harry Potter had known.

 

“Nicolas Flamel seems to be doing well for himself.” He stated with narrowed eyes and pale fingers that tapped out a four beat rhythm against the table, strange though how the tone was almost conversational, as if they were discussing the weather.

 

(It was also about the most unsubtle dig for information that he had ever heard, but why not indulge the man, he had come this far after all. He had broken himself in fragments to have this conversation and besides it was not exactly heartening news for those seeking a life free from death.)

 

“For now,” was all he said at that point in time though, “Forever is longer than humans bargain for and against eternity all fail-safes must face the probability that they will fail. Even yours, even Flamel’s, and so on.”

 

There was a flicker of something on Tom Riddle’s face but it faded before he could register it properly, now it was only another piece of information to be tucked away, stones could not be relied on.

 

“Well, won’t he be thrilled to hear that?” The tone was almost cheerful a dry mockery that he was growing accustomed to with this Tom Riddle, another thing that Voldemort had lacked. “Not that it’s your job to worry about these things anymore, it’s Lily’s, or did I misunderstand that whole idea of her being the incarnation of death in our own universe?”

 

So many assumptions made in that question, he couldn’t help but smile a bit at it, and he wondered dimly if he should attempt to correct at least a few of them. Then again, perhaps it wasn’t the time, some things you must see for yourself and being in Lily’s head Tom Riddle would have a first class seat to the entire process. Some misunderstandings, at this point at least, were almost necessary.

 

Finally with a lightness that was strained to the point of breaking, “Of course you did, but that’s what makes you so very human.” He paused for a moment before adding on another note, “Don’t let it upset you though, this idea of the afterlife, always remember that graveyards are filled with indispensable men.”

 

That must have been the breaking point for comrade Riddle because he stood rather dramatically without a word and briskly walked away from the table towards the train glistening in the distance leaving both Lily and Death to stare after him.

 

“He’s fairly sensitive.” He remarked casually to Lily who nodded absently.

 

“Yeah, he doesn’t really like talking about the whole death, or dying, or the idea of dying… or psychologists, he really doesn’t like those either.” She observed looking back over at Death with a vaguely puzzled expression on her face, as if he held the answers to her friend Lenin’s psyche.

 

“I see.”

 

They sat for a few final moments in silence, sipping the remnants of their tea, and watching the now pacing dark haired man off in the distance who was doing everything within his power not to glare at the table and acknowledge the fact that he couldn’t leave unless Lily wanted him to.

 

“Okay, I guess he wants to go, oh well we’ll just see you next Sunday anyway. I’ll tell you what’s up with Mrs. Figg’s cats, did I tell you they formed a patrol, they’re not super active right now but I think they’ll come back.” She held up her hand in a small fast wave and stood, “Well, see ya.”

 

Before she could walk away and fade into the living dimension he interrupted her with one final nagging question that had been resting in his own mind.

 

“Tell me, Lily, how is Tom Riddle treating you?”

 

She turned and regarded him, “You mean, Lenin? Oh, we’re good, he’s been pretty cranky recently because we haven’t gone visiting the glitch manipulators to find him a body and or his comrades; it’s kind of unclear what he really wants from that. But other than that… Wait is this one of these abuse questions?”

 

“…No.”

 

“Oh, cool-cool.”

 

She didn’t wave goodbye or act as if she wouldn’t see him again, it was as if to her he was a given, that he would always exist there in that station and that even if the universe fell to pieces as she claimed he would be there at the table waiting for her. She simply walked over to Tom Riddle, smiled up at the man, and left with only the image of dust trailing in their wake.

 

Staring after them by himself in the station, he recalled those final moments in his own universe, the dead wind drifting through his hair, and the coiling shadows that only seemed to grow as the echoes of human voices fell silent.

 

But that was only a moment, and moments bled in the world between worlds, so there was already another Lily in the distance dragging a reluctant man behind her who was dressed in green and warily holding a burning cigar in his fingertips.

 

“Ah, Mr. Castro,” He stood and greeted the pair, “I see Operation Mongoose is once more in effect, how are the cigars this evening?”

**Author's Note:**

> Written once upon a time for a 100th review of "Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus" for something featuring Lily, Wizard Lenin, and Death in Purgatory.
> 
> Thanks for reading, comments, kudos, and bookmarks are greatly appreciated.


End file.
